Jeremiah 2:1-8

The LORD Pleads with Backsliding Israel

2¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² Go and say in the ears of Jerusalem, The Lord says, I still keep the memory of your kind heart when you were young, and your love when you became my bride; how you went after me in the waste of sand, in an unplanted land. ³ Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase: all who made attacks on him were judged as wrongdoers, evil came on them, says the Lord. ⁴ Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and all the families of Israel: ⁵ These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false? ⁶ And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living? ⁷ And I took you into a fertile land, where you were living on its fruit and its wealth; but when you came in, you made my land unclean, and made my heritage a disgusting thing. ⁸ The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those who were expert in the law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers did evil against me, and the prophets became prophets of the Baal, going after things without value.